1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to workflow management, and more particularly to a recording medium storing a workflow function addition program, a recording medium storing an e-mail program, a recording medium storing a workflow management program, a user terminal unit, a workflow management apparatus, a workflow processing method, and a workflow management method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In these years, a workflow system has become well known that manages and automates a flow of documents or information from one person to another, when multiple persons work via a network, so as to facilitate their work. Such a workflow system is disclosed, for example, in: Haruo Hayami; “Expanding Workflow Management System: 1,” IPSJ (Information Processing Society of Japan) Magazine, Vol. 39, No. 11, pp. 1160-1165 (1998); Haruo Hayami, Toshiaki Sakaguchi and Ryoichi Shibuya; “Expanding Workflow Management System: 2,” IPSJ Magazine, Vol. 39, No. 12, pp. 1258-1263 (1998); Haruo Hayami, Ryoichi Shibuya, Takao Suzuki, Junichi Ikoma, Yosuke Terashita, Naoki Ueno, Satoshi Kaneko and Kiyoshi Hayashi; “Expanding Workflow Management System: 3,” IPSJ Magazine, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 507-513 (1999); “Standards,”<http://www.wfmc.org/standards/standards.htm> (search date: Jul. 3, 2003); “Workflow Management Coalition, The Workflow Reference Model,”<http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/tc003v11.pdf> (search date: Jul. 3, 2003); and “Workflow Management Coalition, Terminology & Glossary,”<http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/TC-1011_term_glossary_v3.pdf> (search date: Jul. 3, 2003).
According to the conventional workflow management system, notification of workflow-related processing is commonly made by e-mail. A workflow participant starts e-mail software, and confirms notification of workflow-related processing. Then, the workflow participant starts an application dedicated to a workflow management system, opens a screen for performing the workflow-related processing separately from the screen of the e-mail software, and performs operations for the workflow-related processing.
However, there is a problem in that the workflow-related processing is separated into the operation of starting the e-mail software and confirming a workflow-related notification mail and the operation of newly starting the application dedicated to the workflow management system and performing the operations for the workflow-related processing.
Further, notification messages from the workflow management system and general e-mail messages are treated equally on the screen of the e-mail software. Therefore, there is a problem in that if workflow-related notification messages are left unread, it is difficult to find those unread notification messages among a large number of received e-mail messages.
There is also a problem in that a user management system and/or a user authentication system for the workflow management system should be newly installed.